


Snowcover

by gisho



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Developing Friendship, Gen, filling in gaps in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-10 00:01:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8918701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Violetta is cold, and nervous, and she doesn't understand Zeetha at all. But at least she's sure they're on the same side.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agni_kai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agni_kai/gifts).



> For hands-of-blue in the 2016 Spark Exchange. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to stellawind for doing a beta-read on very short notice!

\--

"You've never been to Paris?"

"The circus didn't go that far west." Zeetha shrugged. "You seem fond of the place. What's it like?"

"Well." Violetta considered this. "It's ruled by the Master of Paris - his name is Simon Voltaire, but nobody calls him that. He's been in charge for two - "

"Not that stuff," Zeetha cut in. "I know what they'd put in an encyclopaedia. Tell me what it feels like. What kind of people live there. What kind of soul it has."

It had been years since she was in Paris, but for all Grandfather's rants - and missing his decline is one of the few advantages of missing two years - Violetta was fond of the place. She tried to think of the right words. She settled for, "Bright."

\--

That was her first impression. The lights at the Sturmhalten airdocks were bright, of course, but they were also purposeful, technical. Not Spark-work, was the joke. The lights of Paris were obvious Spark-work; they glittered, and spilled out over the whole city in glorious impractical swathes of gold and electric blue. There was lightning around the Awful Tower, even in the absence of a storm. Over the University something was shooting green sparks thirty meters high, despite the steady foam from three fire-ships. 

Violetta kept her face pressed to the window. It wasn't very dignified. Her cousin, eleven and feeling his age, sat primly with hands folded, as if he didn't care. 

The customs orientation was projected onto a wall by a complicated lantern that whirred and spun. Tarvek kept pretending not to look at the lantern. Uncle Selnikov, who was in Paris so often he kept a flat there, ignored it in favour of checking his watch and muttering about incompetent pilots and unnecessary delays. 

But Violetta paid attention. It was hard not to, the swirling colours resolving into moving figures. She wondered if this was Spark-work, too. When they were hurried away she kept looking back to see if it would start again.

(On later consultation, she and Tarvek concluded that it wasn't sparkwork- merely a more advanced form of zoetrope.)

It was easier to disappear, in Paris. There was always something else to catch the eye. Violetta took shameless advantage, and for a little while she felt like she might be a halfway-competent Smoke Knight someday. 

\--

Not that she told Zeetha that. Zeetha obviously didn't do sneaky. She settled for talking about Grandmother's parties, and the Marché de l'Escargot, and the Dadaist Doomknights, which made Zeetha laugh. "They don't sound very doomy."

"Dey'z not," Maxim piped up, and they both tried not to jump. It wasn't fair how fast Jägers could go from apparently-asleep to upright and grinning. "I vas in a barfight vith one at de Kat Noir once. Vent down in tree punches and vun smack on de skull vit a rafter. Und de bananas vere _very tasty_."

"A Doomknight in a barfight?" Violetta rolled her eyes.

"Vell, by den it vas sort ov a train-station-fight."

Zeetha raised her stein in salute. "So, nothing we have to worry about."

"No, we only have the entire Wulfenbach Empire. And whatever horrible things my family tries next." She didn't bother keeping the contempt out of her voice. Violetta was the Lady Heterodyne's now, and no longer had any reason to put up a good face in public.

She never could keep up a good face.

"Vel, de Knights of Jove has _factions,_ " Maxim said. "So if ve vait mebbe they'll kill each odder first." He sounded disappointed.

Zeetha didn't, even as she said, "We don't have time to wait."

They didn't. They were running two and a half years late, and things had begun to move. 

\--

But later on, when the Jägers had fallen asleep in a pile and Violetta was taking advantage of the dying fire to clean her darts, Zeetha asked, "You don't like your family much, do you?"

"Why would I? They're awful." Her hands clenched. "Between the lot they've tried to kill me, oh, thirty-eight times. Counting possible accidents."

That, gratifyingly, got an indignant look. "What are they after you for? You're not in line for this Lightning Throne thing, are you?"

"They're awful people. Like I said." She yanked her darts out, and blew the ash off them. "Well, and I was supposed to be Tarvek's knight, so anyone who wanted _him_ dead would have wanted me out of the way. But I'm not in the line of succession or anything."

"Not even if you killed Tweedle?" Zeetha blinked at her. 

"Is that how succession works where you come from? I thought you were some kind of princess."

"Princess-guardian. Not really the same thing you have in Europa." She rolled her eyes. "I'm the War Queen's only daughter, but that doesn't mean I get her job, especially since - hey, you okay?"

Her hands were clenched, white-knuckled. Bad form. Careless. "I can't kill Tweedle," she muttered. "I couldn't get _close_ enough, he's too good. I don't know what I'm doing here, there are so many Smoke Knights who actually know how to mix poisons and don't start screaming at things when they get angry -" 

She cut off. Zeetha was hugging her. 

"Hey, you were doing just fine back in Mechanicsburg." 

That was probably Zeetha's idea of comforting. She rolled her eyes. "Clanks are easy. And that big bloatwalker doesn't count, it was a lucky -"

"You need cheering up," Zeetha interrupted.

"I'm just being hon-"

"You know what would help?" And, very suddenly, she was on her feet and swinging a stick of firewood. "A good practice bout!"

"What the -" Violetta was on the other side of the fire now, of course, that was basic Yellow Codex. "How is that supposed to help!"

Zeetha wasn't a Smoke Knight. Every step of her leap was visible, and she landed where Violetta had been with a thump that shook the cave floor. By the time Violetta had grabbed a wrench she'd made two swings that would have drawn blood, on an ordinary hand-to-hand fighter. But Zeetha wasn't a Smoke Knight, and Violetta could just keep dodging until she had a chance to duck in for a stab with the wrench that met Zeetha's -

\- stick, and knocked it out of her hand. "Come _on_ ," Violetta said, as much to herself as Zeetha, and went behind her - Zeetha spun around before her feet hit the ground, laughing, and swept in with both her sticks. Where had she gotten another?

Well, it didn't matter, now she was holding two old bones. Her surprise made her stumble, and they shattered against the wall as Violetta dropped under the blow. She grabbed Zeetha by the thighs, which wasn't a traditional move at all and would have gotten her clucked at disapprovingly in school, and managed to twist just enough to send them both crashing to the floor with no grace at all.

"Truce?" she panted, before Zeetha could try anything else. There was a noise of applause. Damn, she should have known they'd wake up the Jägers.

Zeetha was still laughing. Violetta could feel the muscles of her stomach shake. "Truce."

"You know that didn't exactly help -"

"You're not complaining anymore, I'd call that helpful," Zeetha said, and calmly twitched her hips to roll them both over, very suddenly. Her grin was full of teeth. She had _fangs_. How did Violetta not notice the fangs before? "Besides, now I know a little about fighting Smoke Knights. We should do it again tomorrow."

\--

The best way to win, her teachers said, was not to fight. It was one of a great many things they said with perfect confidence, looking at her out of the corners of their eyes as if they weren't quite sure what she was doing there. She wasn't sure herself. 

But for the three months in Paris the saying began to make sense. Violetta took a ridiculous delight in snatching things from their relatives and never admitting it. In theory they'd all had the same training, but Grandfather was going deaf, Uncle Selnikov had let himself go, and Uncle Tick-Tock - well, he was a Spark. He was distractible, usually by Tarvek asking questions with an earnest expression. Once the two of them grew so involved in recalibrating a clepsydra that she got her great-uncle's watch, three of his fine screwdrivers, his vitroscope, and finally Tarvek's glasses. 

That last got her cousin's attention, and they fell into a furious silent chase, in and out of sight. Eventually their uncle noticed his audience had vanished. "Is something the matter?"

She put Tarvek's glasses back on his nose, just to be difficult. "Check your pockets," Tarvek said, louder than necessary.

"Oh dear. How did you do that?"

"With style and grace," Violetta informed them, and folded her arms to bask for a few moments in the glow of victory. She wasn't going to say more, not even if it was allowed. The best way to win was to cheat.

\--

"I'm not going to reveal the secrets of the Yellow Codex to you," Violetta muttered.

"That's fine, I know about secret techniques. Just show me where to stab." Zeetha sat up, arms folded over her chest. 

A half-shrug was all Violetta could manage, pressed against the floor. "A meter away from where you think they are, in a direction they're not moving. But if you know you're fighting a Smoke Knight, you already have the upper hand. We're only meant to need one hit."

Zeetha was already rising to her feet, with a feline grace Violetta was sure she'd never match. "Well, you got your hit," she said, still showing her fangs. "We'll see if you can do it twice. Tomorrow."

\--

The thing was - well, there were multiple things, and they were all twisting into a complicated knot in Violetta's head and keeping her from getting any sleep. She'd still been exhausted enough last night to drop straight off, slept until noon, and however much she knew that this was a breathing space, they should be getting as much rest as they could while Agatha strategized, she couldn't manage to stop thinking.

Three days. Wulfenbach's people will have stopped looking; Axel Higgs had said as much, before he left. Why the Jägers all took his word for it - why they let him leave at all - Violetta's not sure. They went out afterwards and jumped on trees to hide the tracks, shaking loose flurries of snow and shattering icicles, and the wind had done the rest. 

She can hear it now, howling past the cave mouth. If she drops off it will sound like Sparkhounds on the hunt.

At least Agatha isn't here. She's safe in the deep caverns; this is a sentry post, and there's no passage between them. Violetta knows she is safe; she's heard Agatha's voice, crackling and faded with the bad weather, from the assemblage of wire and pulsing biolumenescence that, the Jägers declared, was not a radio and could not be overheard. Sparkwork.

The distance is a matter of kilometres. Smoke Knights can't walk on snow, but she could take a winding route, cover her tracks. It would be possible.

Unless - until - she heard the noise of hunters. It would be distant, at first, echoing off the valleys. Not Jägers (and that does mean _hunter_ , the wild hunt of the Heterodynes) but the Sparkhounds, eager on the scent. Ready to serve their master.

Their baying would get louder, in time, the snow barely dampening the echoes. Baying of hounds, and gnashing of teeth, and Martellus's triumphant laughter. He used to laugh like trumpets blowing, the laugh of someone sure they could never go wrong. The sound rings in her memory and she wants to smack him in the mouth for it.

There are a lot of people she wants to hit, honestly.

The snow would crunch beneath her feet. Laboured breathing, trying not to breathe, as the noise grows closer and her teeth start to chatter. The chattering is all out of proportion. It echoes in her head. She clenches her jaw, breathes through her nose and tries not to think. Thinking will only slow her down. Too slow, her teachers used to say, you'd never make it through a real fight. Her thoughts are sluggish. Ice on the gears of her mind.

Violetta lifts her hand, and sees it has turned into the ceramic shell of a Muse who can feel no cold. See, her cousin says, you'll be fine. I'll keep you safe. I can't keep you warm but I can keep you safe. He unrolls his tools, smiling behind blue lips, and her bones ring against each other as she tries to snatch them away.

Zeetha is laughing like a bell. How can she serve the Lady Heterodyne now? She lifts her feet, through no will of her own. She is dancing with Zeetha, hands limp and face a painted smile. No use at all. He'll fix you, Zeetha says, and brings her sword down like a stroke of lightning. Violetta falls to  
bits.

A thousand pieces vanished into the snow. Her cousin is crying, the guilty messy sobs of a child trying to hide, and that makes no sense; even as a little child he never cried. It must be from the pain. His fingers are blue as he cards through the snow.

Leave me, she wants to say, don't you hear the hounds? They bay like an earthquake, the noise of a Jäger saying, "Hey, hey -"

Apparently she could sleep, because now Violetta woke up.

"You avake?" Nikodem breathed, hand hovering over her shoulder.

"Now I am. What is it?"

"Hunting party, tree kilometres out. Ve move."

\--

A little red sunlight reflected off the mountains to the west, the air was clear and crisp, and Zeetha was in a shirt with no sleeves. "I don't know how you do that," Violetta grumbled from beneath Maxim's jacket. 

"Ancient Skifandrian warrior discipline."

"How secret is it?"

That got an arm thrown over her shoulders, and warm breath in her ear. "Very."

"Of course," she muttered, but she didn't move away. Zeetha's skin was furnace-hot, like she brought her very own tropics with her. It was hard not to lean closer. There wasn't anything like this in the Yellow Codex - tricks for cooling down, yes, calming your breathing and slowing your heartbeat, but no one had come up with the opposite. Maybe they'd assumed Smoke Knights would always work indoors. 

Not that indoors was a guarantee of comfort. She remembered what Sturmhalten had been like, for all its practical plumbing, until Tarvek had reached the end of his patience and spent a week of irregular fugue threading brine pipes through all the inhabited rooms.

It would be better in Paris. The city was a heat island.

Zeetha was getting a thoughtful look. "If you say another practice bout would warm me up I'll - I'll just fall over and play dead," Violetta muttered.

"Well, not _now._ We're busy." Zeetha gave her a last squeeze and let go, stretching. "Maybe when we get to - Hey, Nikodem, where are we going?"

"Pothole Twelve. Dis little tiny cave," he added at Violetta's confused noise, and held up two claws to demonstrate. "No room. Unless you wrestle."

"Eh. Maybe in Paris."

Paris seemed like a dream. How they're going, when they're leaving, Agatha didn't say; Violetta had suggested a few false trails that might lead Martellus away, briefly, and let it go. She was no strategist. All she could do was wait and listen, and in the wilderness she couldn't even do much listening. She would be more useful in Paris, where her family are lurking, glittering like caltrops and bright-coloured as a poison-dart frog.

And somehow, in the face of all that, Zeetha looked perfectly confident. It made Violetta unjustly bitter, and she burst out, "Why aren't you panicking?" 

"Because Agatha is back," Zeetha said, as if it were that simple. "She fixed the Castle. She'll fix Mechanicsburg."

\--

Not until they were in Paris, temporarily safe and wonderfully warm in a guest-room at the Library, did Violetta start to feel afraid again. There hadn't quite been time, until then, but now the two shadows they picked up in the Black Market were looming in her mind. And Agatha's one wasp-eater was small comfort, when anyone they met could be an enemy. Violetta was used to people killing each other with _reason_.

Agatha was breathing steadily beside her, little whuffling noises like an oversized mimmoth. Zeetha - wasn't. Zeetha was still in the armchair, arms around her knees.

"You can't sleep either?" Violetta said into the darkness, just loud enough to carry.

A sigh. "Just thinking some things over."

"Yeah. Think we'll get out of the crypts alive?"

"My people have a saying. If you don't know you're going to win, you'll lose." A creak, and a rustle of fabric. Violetta smothered her laugh in the pillow. "We have to, don't we? Agatha needs us."

Smoke Knights lessons were more cool-headed. Smoke feels nothing, was their saying. And, always plan for failure. Someday you, too, will die. But Violetta didn't say any of that, couldn't bring herself to. The most hopeful thing she could think of was, "She's smart. She'll manage whatever happens."

Zeetha's footsteps were light, but not so light it was a surprise when she settled all at once onto the bed. "Yeah," she whispered, and slipped an arm over Violetta's shoulders. "So we have to stick around until the big victory party."

"Right. Fancy dresses and cake."

"And dancing." She couldn't see Zeetha's grin, but she knew it was there. "Say you'll dance with me at the party?"

"You're on," Violetta mumbled, and pressed her face to her friend's shoulder, and took long slow breaths.

After a while she felt consciousness slipping away, and let it, and slept without dreams until breakfast.

\---


End file.
